Huge Aussie 'Star Wars' fan acquires 'Jedi' powers after microchip implant procedure

Bio-hacking has been around since the 1980 and has been seen as away to improve anyone’s way of living. As for Australian die-hard Star Wars fan Shanti Korporaal, she chose to modify her body with RFID and NFC chips which give her the Jedi-like ability to open doors, turn on her smartphone, and even store her health and personal data.

While most people would still be thinking about their phone, keys and wallet as they leave their house, this is not the case for the 27-year-old futurist who has these embedded in her hands. She has microchips the size of grains in place of these things beneath the webbing of her left and right hands. However, she has to wait a little longer to be able to have a built-in smartphone, writes SCMP.

Korporaal grew up watching Star Wars wherein she says that she has been deeply impressed by the powers of the Force. Now, she is the closest to a real life Jedi that a human can be with the ability to open doors without actually touching them.

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Korporaal and her husband, fellow futurist Skeeve Stevens, aim to make tech implants widely available through her companies Future Sumo and Chip my life.

Koporaal got these hand implants through a doctor in May, although she says that the most popular person who does these kinds of procedures is a body piercer named Amal Graafstra who has embedded chips into around 1,200 hands. It involves a very simple 2-second procedure wherein the needle just goes in and out.

Washington Post reports that, to Korporaal’s friends, the chips have been a source of envy. She says that most reactions are either curious or jealous, adding that she can open doors without a key while they cannot.

While life for her appears awesome after having Jedi-like powers, she says that the hardest part was not actually the procedure itself, but the recovery which kept her off the gym for two weeks. Also, she received some hurtful backlash on social media from some Christians who compared her chips with “the mark of the beast.” Korporaal says that although she has those marks, she still is a Christian.